Meeting to regularise pulse polio

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Feb. 9: Malda district magistrate Mr CR Das today held a meeting with the health officials to gear up the pulse polio immunisation drive to be held from 11 to 13 February. Health authorities said they would take a special drive at the brick kilns, stone crushing zones and bidi factories where labourers from Bihar and Jharkhand come to work along with their children. “We are concerned about areas bordering the neighbouring states of Bihar and Jharkhand where wild polio virus gets detected regularly,” said Dr Radha Raman Banik , Malda CMOH. “Due to that reason we have decided to mobilise our forces in those areas to administer polio drop among children aged below five,” the CMOH, said. According to him, since January 2006 a total of 666 polio cases have been detected in India. Of those, 539 cases have been detected in Uttar Pradesh and 61 cases were detected in Bihar. “The rest surfaced in other states including one case in West Bengal,” he informed. The health officials have decided to try and cover 21 per cent of the left out babies as per the target taken in every immunisation drive. Records showed that in January 2007, the health officials had been able to cover 79 per cent of its target and 5,43,339 children were attended to. In September 2006, the health officials had been able to cover 73 percent of their target figure. The CMOH also disclosed that there had been some stray pockets of resistance across the district where the health workers could not reach due to various technical difficulties. The CMOH has urged the district magistrate to involve panchayat officials in this programme so that school authorities keep their schools open for the setting up of pulse polio booths. The Malda district magistrate Mr C R Das said that not only the health workers but also the ICDS workers and NGO volunteers would take part to make the programme a success.